The circular rest place with stone wall round the circumference, up from the salt lagoon, happened to be at the kilometre 110 board, so I knew it is another fifty kilometres to the border. I hoped to be there at midday and perhaps have a coffee and buy a big bottle of coke at the petrol station there.

The wind had settled overnight and although plenty warm in the sleeping bag, the condensation had frozen the tent stiff and the smaller water bottle was solid ice. The two large bottles I carry most of my water in had enough unfrozen water to boil for tea, which I have with the oat biscuits wearing down jacket and sleeping bag zipped up over it waiting as the sun warms and thaws the tent out.

The wind starts to blow shortly after setting off at ten. Strong wind which would blow relentlessly all day, all night and all the following day without let up. My route being largely east, and the wind from the west, means for much of the day I'm pushed along by it while not pedaling and using the brakes to slow, such is the winds incredible strength.

There's no traces of snow now, just the barren tan coloured valley with lagoon in the bottom. Then the road rises up a slope and crosses over revealing a grey basin and another whitish lagoon ahead. Here too when I get as far is a stone wall enclosed circular rest place up the slope of the valley by the roadside at a vantage point over the lagoon. There's a VW campervan parked in it, the first vehicle I've seen since early afternoon yesterday, without a doubt having overnighted there. The couple are up sitting in the front. I wave and they wave back. Still the wind pushes me on, up the kilometre or so long hill that follows, leveling out upon a plateau with a drop or step down a bit off to the right. From the last time I remember that over and down the slope on the right is Argentina.

I descend a steep hill into Argentina and the border village of Jama, where since the last time a new migrations complex has been built. The young gendarme officer at a pole-barrier by a check point box on the approach has a scarf over his face against the strong wind. He goes behind the box for shelter to write and come back out and hands me a ticket with "Biciletta" written on it and tells me to go by the bus parked underneath a roofed forecourt to the complex building.

The bus passengers have filled out inside and they've brought in all their heavy cases to be put through a scanning machine. This is to detect any undeclared electronic goods bought in Chile. Argentina has high import taxes making such goods very expensive. Anyway, being a foreigner, I'm unaffected and am not required to take my panniers in to be scanned.

I am accosted in the queue by four pensioner men that are returning from a trip to Machu Picchu. They happened to be in a car behind me at the check point, so saw me on the bike. They speak with loud italianate-Buenos Aires ascent as they ask where I'm from, where I started cycling, where I'm cycling. I just say from San Pedro and cycling to Salta, as I know the enormity of how far I've come may be too much for them to take in.

I get my Chilean exit stamp, then the bicicletta ticket stamped, then the same four pensioners have made friends with the officer behind the counter doing the Argentine entry stamps, the last thing I need before leaving. I wait while they chat away and eventually they shake the officers hand underneath the glass shield above the counter and leave, so I can get my stamp and leave too.

On from the migrations complex is a kind of village: a hospedaje (guesthouse), a YPF petrol station and a block of low housing.

I am glad to get in out of the wind in the small cafeteria of the petrol station. There's a display of pictures of different sandwiches, but they're pricy; nonetheless, a succulent melted cheese and salad sandwich, or hamburger lunch, I thought would augment the oat biscuit and pasta diet. But, the unfriendly indigenous tender behind the counter tells me there's no "verdura" (vegetables) in any of the sandwiches. Typical. The food picture on the wall looks delicious. The reality is nearly always otherwise. As it happen the bus then pulls to a halt on the forecourt and shortly it's passenger shuffle inside. Quite a few order sandwiches and the sandwiches are a miserable representation of those in the pictures above the counter. Being small, premade in a factory somewhere and microwaved to life and priced 80-100 pesos (£4-5).

I settle for a coffee and a big bottle of coke, which cost 75 pesos (£3.75) and lunch on oat biscuits. I refill all my water bottles in the toilets before setting out again.

The road on veers right a kilometre after leaving Jama (the village), which got me worried about the consequential crosswind I'd have. When I get as far, the wind changing to coming at me form my right side, but slightly to the rear, its difficult keeping the bike on the right side of the road. The wind pushes me straight across. Fortunately there's no traffic, until two oncoming truck are seen approaching. I pull off onto the gravel shoulder until they pass, as I'm afraid of being pushed by the wind into their path.

Thankfully, this section doesn't last long until the road veers slightly left, so the wind is coming at my rear right corner, enough to be called a helping wind. Indeed for a long stretch I just sit on the bike without pedalling, having to brake to slow as the wind pushes with such force.

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The road at this point does a big detour south, pass "Salar de Jama" apparently the range of hills all along the left side being impenetrable until a gap, which the road turns in through. On the other side of the hills the way opens into a wide plain gradually descending to a large salt flat basin, Salar de something, which the road crosses at a narrow point before swinging north, whereupon I've the wind coming from my left, though still enough to the rear as not to blow me off the side of the road. It just means I've to pedal.

The road follows with the white expanse of the salar on the left side for about twenty kilometres. I stop along the way when I come to ruins, a cluster of old roofless adobe houses, thinking in the sheltered lea of which would be a good sheltered campsite, but the wind gets round and in there too. I then decide to continue until the road turns into a valley away form the open plain, hoping to find shelter.

When I get as far the valley is a narrow canyon. There's lots of good places to camp, but none have much shelter. I check out numberous places where the road is banked up high providing somewhat a buffer against the wind, but with the road now directly east, the west wind come in from the side no matter where I look.

Then I come to a natural trench down from the road with an east facing wall the height of a two-storey house. The perfect campsite in this wind, but there's no easy access. I have to unload the bike and portage bike and panniers down a bank from the road.

I pitch the tent tight to the base of the wall on a dry stream bed in the trench bottom with some difficulty as its blustery down here too. I lay the bike alongside the tent and anchor the tent with guy-lines to the bike.

I cook pasta, eat and settle for the night. It feels a comfortable campsite snug in the sleeping bag, until an hour after lying down come a big gust of wind bellowing in the side of the tent violently. Then once it calms, its calm for perhaps five minutes, when I hear the wind again coming with a great whistle from afar and hit the tent side on, trying to go underneath and lift it off the ground even though I've anchored the tent well with my panniers.

The wind would go on like this and keep me awake most of the night, so violently, I thought the tent would be wrecked by morning.